'MEDICINAL' MARIJUANA CONFRONTS VOTERS

Local Resident Says Pot Use Eases His Pain

The spasms were so bad that even doctors considered them impressive.

To dull the terrible pain, "Zachery," a quadriplegic, was taking all the
heavy hitters of the prescription drug world: morphine, Demerol, Valium.

But Zachary (not his real name) was able to get off almost all those
mind-numbing drugs by switching to a simple, time-honored remedy; marijuana.

On Nov. 3, Oregon voters will decide, through Ballot Measure 67, whether
marijuana should come out of the closet and be openly used for medical
purposes.

It is already widely, but covertly, used medicinally, Zachary said. He
estimates 75 percent of the paraplegics and quadriplegics he knows use pot
to control their spasms.

Zachary smokes pot daily, if he can get it, for the spasms and a pinched nerve.

For years he was an occasional pot smoker, but quit about three years ago,
because he didn't like how he felt when he smoked pot: sort of paranoid
about going out in public.

But about two months ago, he started getting horrible spasms. "When they
start going they just pick up momentum, I can't breathe. I just catch my
breath between them. Have you seen The Exorcist? It's exactly like that."

The spasms--which were about 8 or 9 on a pain scale of 1 to 10--were almost
intolerable.

"From about my nipple line down, my whole body is jumping in bed; I mean,
clear up off the bed and slamming me back down, and I'm just bouncing
around. It's like having an epileptic fir and being wide awake for it."

He was put on morphine and Valium, but didn't like them for several
reasons: they damage internal organs, can be highly addictive, and they
make him "zone out."

He tried the pill form of pot, but it "did absolutely nothing. I don't
know what the difference is (from smoked pot) but there's some difference
somewhere."

Finally, he switched to smoked pot about two and a half weeks ago. It
stopped the spasms "dead cold."

Now, he's off almost all the painkillers, except for a bit of morphine he
takes at bedtime.

He wants pot legalized for medical uses because he hopes the price may go
down. Now he pays $40 for an eighth of an ounce of pot, which lasts him
about a week.

When he's taking pot, his legs can even be moved and it doesn't trigger a
spasm.

The success he's had with pot has made him adamant about Measure 67. "It
just absolutely has to be passed, some way somehow, it has to be passed."

"I think it should be told, finally. I know that a lot of guys won't bring
it up, but it's too expensive for me to buy so I'd rather see if I could
get it through a pharmacy."

Actually, if medical marijuana is approved in Oregon, it would not be
controlled through prescriptions and sold through pharmacies because
federal law does not recognize marijuana as a drug with therapeutic
properties.

While friends help Zachary secure pot, he smokes it by himself, "so no one
else can get in trouble."

He has to be furtive in his smoking, since he lives in a care facility in
the Mid-Columbia. "You just gotta do what you gotta do, that's what I
learned (since becoming quadriplegic)."

He's been paralyzed for over 10 years. Zachary is motivated not only by
hopefully lower costs, but what he sees as the illogical set of
circumstances that, under law, "I can get so drunk I fall out of my chair,
but I can't have a few tokes (of pot)."

He was once at a spinal chord clinic on the West Coast, and brought up the
subject of marijuana to a nurse.

"She said, Ohh, shhh. We don't talk about that around here. Our
administrator is deathly against.' And I said, 'What did he do, watch
Reefer Madness or something?' That is the funniest show, I ain't kidding
you. People go crazy, jumping off building, doing all kinds of weird
things."

As for people who oppose the idea of using marijuana for medical purposes,
he said, "I just say, you try to live with these spasms and my pain for
awhile and see how long it takes you to smoke it, you'd be on it like right
now."
-------------------end first part----------------

Critics: Measure Unneeded
Author: NEITA CECIL

Marijuana as a medical tool rates a big fat zero from one local doctor.

"My feeling is that medical marijuana in not necessary because we have a
multitude of medications that work," said Dr. Fran Yuhas of The Dalles.
"And I think it's a slippery slope, I don't support that."

Top local law officers- Wasco County sheriff and district attorney- also
strongly oppose Oregon's Nov. 3 medical marijuana measure, saying it's
essentially a means to legalize marijuana use.

Yuhas has prescribed the pill form of marijuana to certain patients under
specific conditions. But she is thoroughly opposed to smoking. "I can't
feature why that would be a good idea."

A group of people likely to smoke marijuana, those with AIDS, already have
weakened immune systems, and marijuana "is well known to carry funguses
that will kill them off, " she said.

"I haven't found a cancer patient yet that I can't help with one thing or
another," she said, and there have been "wonderful" new drugs introduced in
the last six months that have helped.

With marijuana, it's a significant unknown-beyond the known pathogens and
funguses, she said, "I just don't think it's indicated and you can't
control dosage and you don't know where it came from and whether it's
deteriorated from sitting in the sun."

Wasco County District Attorney Bernie Smith feels the measure "is just an
open door to marijuana use and abuse."

"It gives lots and lots of openings for people. Even if they don't bother
to get an authorization from a doctor there are weasel words in there for
them to still claim they were doing it for medical reasons. I think it
would make it legal across the board in Oregon."

He said times have changed when it comes to marijuana. "It was harmful
then, but it was fairly minor amounts of the effective chemical. Now
they've bred varieties, it's really potent stuff now. I think a lot of
people in the state are naive that marijuana is an innocent little drug
that a few people with glaucoma might try to use."

Wasco County Sheriff Darrell Hill said the measure is vague in one way -
"what does 'severe pain' mean?" - but transparent in another way: "It's
not about medicine, it's about legalizing marijuana."

If it passes, it will "just be an open market for it, and it's proven that
it dulls the senses. Look at what alcohol does to our young people and
then add marijuana to all that under the pretext of medicine."

If marijuana is legalized under this format, it would probably effectively
nullify any laws against marijuana.

"It will make it real difficult (to enforce the laws against possessing,
delivering or producing marijuana). It won't be cut and dried or black and
white. It will have all these conditions that we have to watch out. How
do you tell if someone has a debilitating medical condition. I mean, what
is that?"

It would have a variety of impacts, especially since medical marijuana
users could use it on the job. "How does it increase the sick time, how
does it increase the accidents? Who knows? There's never been a study
done on that. Look at the problems we have with alcohol in the
workplace...why would we want to add that?"

----------------end second part-----------------

[A separate green colored box contained the following information]

MEASURE 67

Measure 67 would exempt from criminal prosecution people who possess and
grow marijuana for medical purposes.

They would need a physician's statement that they have a debilitating
medical condition and using marijuana may mitigate the symptoms. They
would have to get a registry identification card, or permit, from the
Oregon Health Division, for a fee.

Debilitating medical conditions include cancer, glaucoma, HIV, and AIDS and
having severe pain, severe nausea, seizures. spasms and any other condition
approved, on request, by the state health department.

However, people without the permit who are charged with a marijuana-related
crime can mount the defense that they were using it for medical reasons.

People with the permit would be allowed to have three mature marijuana
plants, four immature plants and one ounce of dried marijuana for each
mature plant they have.

The registered marijuana users would not be able to drive on marijuana and
could not use it in public places. They could not deliver marijuana to
anyone who doesn't have a registry card and they could not sell marijuana
to anyone.

The measure does not require an employer to accommodate the medical use of
marijuana in the workplace, or require public or private health insurers to
reimburse costs. The measure does not require any pharmaceutical control -
that is, it allows people with registry cards to grow and use marijuana at
their own discretion.